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Resistance
Header: Resistance/Fire, Resistance/Frost, Resistance/Arcane, Resistance/Nature, Resistance/Shadow Resistance is the ability to avoid some or all damage or effects from each school of magic, represented by a number for each school in the player's character window. Most spells have a chance to be resisted by both player and NPC, and the chance of resisting is dependent on a player's race and equipment. Overview The ability to avoid some or all of the damage or effects of various Schools of Magic. Resistance Scores Both player and NPC resistance scores determine how much damage you take from a given element type and also affect your chance to completely resist an effect of a spell from that element. Specifically: * resistance is independent of whether the spell "hits", which depends only on relative levels as modified by "to hit" bonuses * if a spell "hits", the end result depends on the caster's level, not the target * effect spells are either resisted or not; damage spells are resisted in such a manner that the average damage is reduced by the resistance effect * basic resistance is given by Average Resistance = (Target's Resistance / (Caster's Level * 5)) * 0.75 * regardless of resistance level, the resistance effect caps out at 75% The effect of the last two points is that you need resistance of 5x caster's level to get maximum (75%) protection. (Details are here if you wish to learn the details.) In other words, there is never a need for more than 365 resistance (corresponding to a lvl 73, or boss, encounter). Stacking Resistances are generally very limited in how they stack. The following five sources of resistance are all independent, but whether they stack within each category depends on the category: * Equipped items and enchants all stack * Potions, auras, totems, and buffs all overlap - the maximum will apply * Flask of Chromatic Resistance * Racial bonus (Dwarves have +10 Frost Resistance, Gnomes have +10 Arcane, Night Elves and Tauren have +10 Nature, Undead and Draenei have +10 Shadow, Blood Elves have +5 everything). For example: A hunter Aspect of the Wild with +60 NR will make any other potions or buffs useless (unless the hunter dies). It will however fully stack with equipment bonuses as well as a racial bonus (Night Elf and Tauren in the case of NR) and a flask. Notes: *Some buffs do actually work with others. For example, the Warlock's Demon Armor does stack with other buffs such as the Priest's Shadow Protection. *Magic Resistance Potion seems to stack with buffs such as Mark of the Wild, but not paladin resistance auras. See Also / Links * Armor resist guide * Blizzard Resistances Page * Characters page at Worldof War.net Notes This is the widely accepted conception of how resistances work, and "agrees" with the official blizzard page explaining resistances, but expands the explanation to the more general rule: At level 60 each 4 resist gives 1% damage reduction up to 300 resistance which gives 75% damage reduction, which is the cap. Against level 63 mobs it's 315 for 75% (4.2 per 1%). On binary spell that % is translated directly into a chance to completely resist the spell. On non-binary spells, that % is translated to chance to resist 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of the damage, in a way that will on average give you damage reduction equal to the % I mentioned above. In contrary to common belief, the more resistance the stronger you will be in encounters that are resistance-based. Going up from 255 to 315 (just 60 resist) will change it from taking 41.3% damage to taking 25% damage - that's 37% less damage compared to what you'd take with 255, or in other words, that 60 extra resistance will make you live 57% longer! Going from 0 to 105 resistance will just give you a 25% resistnace, meaning living 33% longer. Generally non-crappy items that have resistance will increase your survivability % way more than the % of the DPS you'll be losing, especially if you already have good resistances. Living 50% longer means the healers can spend 50% more of their mana on the tanks, or your raid can handle it even if they're short on healers, while the % DPS lost is usually much lower. I have some pretty good gear and I end up losing ~2 spell damage for each 1 resistance I gain, but I need more than 10 spell damage for 1% damage increase while you only need 4.2 resistance (less if you already have more than 0 resistance) to live 1% longer. Fights where this comes into effect is Ragnaros, Vaelstraz, Firemaw, Vicidious, Princess huhura (not for casters though), the bug trio probably (if you do them the hard way). For farelina in nax it's debateable because the damage is kinda avoidable and the fight is timered. It's not the heavy damage you take on ragnaros and vael/firemaw if your raid is good, but still more resists do make you require less healing at the end of the day which is why some guilds do it one way and some do another. For Ragnaros I've lead several pugs and was simply unable to kill him if I just picked people up according to their gear, while I killed him with ease first attempt when I put up a 150 FR requirement for melee and 100 FR requirement for casters. Category:Game Terms Category:Gameplay Category:Combat